Huge section of roof covering Chernobyl nuclear reactor which exploded collapses under the weight of snow

Officials immediately denied any threat of radiation even though the accident involved a cover on part of the workings of Reactor Number 4 which exploded in 1986 in the world's worst atomic disaster.

'There are no safety hazards. The radiation situation at the plant and in the exclusion zone is normal. No one was hurt,' said the administration at the former Soviet plant. [link to www.dailymail.co.uk]

The K East Reactor at Hanford has been torn down to little more than its radioactive core and more than 50 openings have been sealed up.

The reactor will remain that way, in what the Department of Energy calls temporary surveillance mode, possibly for several years.

The K East Reactor is one of three of Hanford's nine plutonium-production reactors lining the Columbia River yet to be cocooned, or placed in storage for up to 75 years to let radiation decay to lower levels. [link to www.tri-cityherald.com] .

A Czech atomic-plant expansion planned near the German border had been one of the few prizes left for Europe’s nuclear-power industry after the Fukushima disaster stopped projects from Switzerland to Romania.

Russian and U.S. contractors have prepared to bid for the $10 billion contract to build two new reactors, Europe’s largest competitive tender for a nuclear project. Now a combination of cheaper European power prices and carbon credits, falling demand for electricity and concern government support may falter leaves CEZ AS’s project in doubt, analysts and investors said.

“The future of nuclear energy in Europe looks very dim indeed,” said Mycle Schneider, an independent consultant on energy and nuclear power based in Paris. “Nuclear is too capital intensive, too time-consuming and simply too risky.” [link to www.businessweek.com] .

At 1352 [hrs. EST], the Unit 2 CCR [Central Control Room] noted a trip of both heater drain tank pumps and entered Abnormal Operating Procedure 2-AOP-FW-1, 'Loss of Feedwater'. Prior to the event, Instrumentation and Controls personnel were performing testing on the heater drain tank level control system. Turbine load was reduced per plant procedures, however a manual reactor trip was initiated at 1355 due to an inability to maintain steam generator water levels. [link to www.nucpros.com] .

As part of routine rounds on 2/13/13, site personnel discovered an overflow condition at a collection tank containing water with low levels of tritium (approximately 6,000 pCi/L). The discharge pump for the tank was found to be nonfunctional which resulted in the overflow condition. Following discovery, a portable pump was utilized to pump the water to the normal monitored discharge path and terminate the overflow condition. The exact volume could not be determined but it is estimated that the volume of water that overflowed to the ground was greater than the 100 gallon threshold for voluntary reporting as indicated in Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) 07-07, 'Industry Ground Water Initiative-Final Guidance Document.' A rough estimate of the release is between 100 and 300 gallons. The tritium was contained to a small area on the plant site in the vicinity of the discharge structure, and there is no significant potential for off-site impact or impact to on-site personnel. [link to www.nucpros.com] .

Scientists from Oregon State University helped found NuScale Power LLC, which is also working on safer and more efficient nuclear energy production. NuScale's technology features what scientists call "passive safety" and uses small, modular reactors.

The new technology that will be tested at OSU uses a “super-hot” nuclear reactor cooled by helium gas instead of water. The reactor would operate at temperatures above 2,000 degrees – about three times as hot as existing reactors.

Quoting: Waterbug

Great, it's a test facility too.

Quoting: Southern OR

No worries.. Someone will make an announcement that there is absolutely no danger to the public.

I wonder if the mouthpiece even believes that..?

Quoting: Waterbug

This is about 3 1/2 hours or so from my house. They do have a nuclear department. It's mostly known as an agricultural school though (plants and farm animals). Strange that we didn't hear about it on our local news.

Scientists from Oregon State University helped found NuScale Power LLC, which is also working on safer and more efficient nuclear energy production. NuScale's technology features what scientists call "passive safety" and uses small, modular reactors.

The new technology that will be tested at OSU uses a “super-hot” nuclear reactor cooled by helium gas instead of water. The reactor would operate at temperatures above 2,000 degrees – about three times as hot as existing reactors.

Quoting: Waterbug

Great, it's a test facility too.

Quoting: Southern OR

No worries.. Someone will make an announcement that there is absolutely no danger to the public.

I wonder if the mouthpiece even believes that..?

Quoting: Waterbug

This is about 3 1/2 hours or so from my house. They do have a nuclear department. It's mostly known as an agricultural school though (plants and farm animals). Strange that we didn't hear about it on our local news.

Quoting: Southern OR

You would think the local news would be all over something like this.How often does a new reactor get tested at a local university..?If it goes well, I expect that they will promote the use of these small reactors everywhere.

Swede posted an article a while back about them.Seems to be the hope for the future of nuclear power.

Tokyo Electric Power Company has begun accepting tenders to pick suppliers of electricity. The utility aims to cover the shortfall created by the suspension of operations at Japan's nuclear plants after the Fukushima accident.

To mark the start of the bidding on Friday, the power company held an explanatory meeting at its headquarters. About 50 companies attended the briefing. They included steel makers and trading houses.

TEPCO set a condition that the bidding price would be under 9.53 yen, or about 10 cents, per kilowatt-hour.This will give coal-fired thermal power plants an advantage because they have lower costs. [link to www3.nhk.or.jp] .

TEPCO workers carried out efforts at the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 reactor to drill a hole through the concrete containment and steel containment liner in order to insert a camera to investigate where the melted nuclear fuel may be currently located and how much water is being provided to cool it.

Four feet from the drilling location radiation levels hovered around 2 millisieverts per hour, but jumped to 10 millisieverts per hour on the drilling surface. Once the hole was opened workers measured the radiation levels on the inside edge of the drilled opening and found the radiation levels were over 200 millisieverts per hour. [link to enformable.com]

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may bring about a small revival to Japan’s robotics industry, which had long been losing ground with consumers as they worked on developing robots which could carry out duties which humans could already do, but now is working to develop new technologies for decontamination and recovery work in extremely hazardous environments where humans cannot work for long periods of time. [link to enformable.com] .

TEPCO workers carried out efforts at the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 reactor to drill a hole through the concrete containment and steel containment liner in order to insert a camera to investigate where the melted nuclear fuel may be currently located and how much water is being provided to cool it.

Four feet from the drilling location radiation levels hovered around 2 millisieverts per hour, but jumped to 10 millisieverts per hour on the drilling surface. Once the hole was opened workers measured the radiation levels on the inside edge of the drilled opening and found the radiation levels were over 200 millisieverts per hour. [link to enformable.com]

A report released Wednesday said the automatic federal spending cuts set for March 1 would require furloughs at the Y-12 National Security Complex and a shutdown of the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.The report was issued by Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee.It said Y-12 would have to furlough 700-1,000 of its 4,500 employees for up to six months, and there would be hundreds of layoffs at national laboratories, universities, research facilities, and private sector companies that rely on grant funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science for energy research, the report said. [link to oakridgetoday.com]

The robot has two boxy machines the size of large refrigerators and moves on crawlers that are remotely controlled. Each machine has four cameras that allow the device to “see” what it is doing, an engineer told reporters....

....and comments:

1

badsey3Feb. 16, 2013 - 07:29AM JST

This is a great start and something positive to talk about in regards to radiation.

Very good for decontamination of materials and equipment but a hovercraft type vehicle is almost needed to go over terrain and capture these radio-active particles.

-1

Kimokekahuna HawaiiFeb. 16, 2013 - 08:53AM JST

who is going to clean the machine.. and add dry ice every half hour.. why dont they let prisoners volunteer to do some clean up.. where does radiation go.. it does not just evaporate... it must blow downwind.. I know of a ranch where people from Sendai can come in Hawaii if they have skills and want to get out of this crazy place for a while..

1

semperfiFeb. 16, 2013 - 09:10AM JST

Kimokekahuna Hawaii - Just to break it down for you : Prisoners are HUMAN BEINGS and are affected by radiation, just like you would be. .......................... A Robot (on the other hand) is a machine so it can take all kinds of exposure. .....Certainly the clean up ,restocking of dry ice, and any "waste" dsiposal would be done in quarantined places with workers fully covered............................

0

tokyo-starFeb. 16, 2013 - 09:44AM JST

I imagine this thing moves pretty slow given the size of it. They need to connect some kind of tube to it so it can keep working, otherwise the dry ice will evaporate before it gets anywhere useful.

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

OLYMPIA — A new leak has been discovered in a nuclear waste storage tank at Hanford, federal authorities told state officials Friday.

Gov. Jay Inslee, in a hastily called news conference, said he was advised of the leak Friday morning by the U.S. Energy Department and vowed to take legal action if necessary to force the federal government to clean it up and continue with other work at the Central Washington nuclear reservation, where millions of gallons of Cold War nuclear waste are buried in decaying tanks.

The single-walled tank, designated as T-111, has about 447,000 gallons of highly toxic transuranic waste, mostly sludge. It is leaking at a rate of about 150 to 300 gallons a year, a rate that is hard to detect. Most of the liquid was pumped out of the tank in the 1990s, and it was considered “stable” in 1995, Keith Phillips, the governor’s energy policy adviser, said. But water flowing through the porous soil is apparently entering the tank and some waste flowing out. No one knows how long the leak has been occurring.

According to the report from the Associated Press, the meteor struck 60 miles from the Mayak nuclear facility that contains tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

"The meteor could have produced much more serious problems. Chelyabinsk is an industrial town long held to be one of the world's most polluted areas, and the area around it hosts nuclear and chemical weapons disposal facilities.

In an annual assessment to Congress on the most expensive “high-risk” federal projects, the GAO said the Na­tion­al Nuclear Security Ad­min­is­tration “recently added $2 billion to the project’s cost estimate, even as the facility nears completion.”

The disclosure, which raises the plant’s cost to $6.8 billion, is the first official confirmation of a major cost increase in the project to dispose of surplus plutonium by blending it with commercial reactor fuel.

The environmental groups cited a 2003 Energy De­­part­ment forecast that the plant would be completed in 2007, with a construction cost of $1.7 billion.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says workers left valves open that drained water from a tank at the plant in Buchanan. That caused the shutdown of two pumps that send water to a steam generator. Control room operators then shut down the reactor Wednesday afternoon.

The most infamous nuclear facility in the area, located in the hard-hit Chelyabinsk Region, is the Mayak nuclear-fuel processing plant which houses some 560 tons of spent uranium fuel, 30 tons of reactor grade plutonium and 500,000 tons of solid radioactive waste. It also stores unknown quantities of weapons grade uranium and plutonium.

Mayak was the site of a major accident in 1957 caused some of the worst nuclear contamination in the Soviet Union’s history, second perhaps only to the infamous Chernobyl reactor accident in the sheer volume of the radioactive emissions it released. The accident occurred when a waste storage tank exploded and showered radionuclides throughout the Southern Urals, leaving areas that are still heavily contaminated with radiation even today.

Other sensitive nuclear sites in the area include Lake Karachai - only some 60 kilometers from where the meteorite hit - which Mayak used as a liquid waste dumping facility for decades. Some 120 million curies of radioactivity are concentrated there.

The lake is now desiccated and summer winds carry radioactively contaminated dust particles into the air. An asteroid hit in the lake bed, said Igor Kudrik, an expert on Russia’s nuclear industry with Bellona, could severely exacerbate the amount of radionuclides blown into the atmosphere.

Likewise, the Techa River Cascade, into which Mayak has dumped so much liquid radioactive contamination over six decades that the river itself is considered nuclear waste, could also spread radioactive contamination were it hit by an asteroid.

Local NGOsare lobbying for the entire river to be covered by a cement sarcophagus, a la Chernobyl’s exploded reactor No 4.

Other radioactive waste and spent nuclear storage sites that are speckled throughout the region could also have posed a danger.

We’re quite familiar with the lore of various secret United States nuclear facilities; their storied history and operations being shrouded in secrecy has fascinated us for decades. What we seldom hear about are the secret nuclear laboratories and test facilities of our greatest Cold War opponent – the former U.S.S.R. One particular installation – Chelyabinsk-40 – was the first Soviet plutonium production complex and the site of three separate massive nuclear incidents. Until recently this area was not on maps and the Russian government denied its existence.

The most infamous nuclear facility in the area, located in the hard-hit Chelyabinsk Region, is the Mayak nuclear-fuel processing plant which houses some 560 tons of spent uranium fuel, 30 tons of reactor grade plutonium and 500,000 tons of solid radioactive waste. It also stores unknown quantities of weapons grade uranium and plutonium.

Mayak was the site of a major accident in 1957 caused some of the worst nuclear contamination in the Soviet Union’s history, second perhaps only to the infamous Chernobyl reactor accident in the sheer volume of the radioactive emissions it released. The accident occurred when a waste storage tank exploded and showered radionuclides throughout the Southern Urals, leaving areas that are still heavily contaminated with radiation even today.

Other sensitive nuclear sites in the area include Lake Karachai - only some 60 kilometers from where the meteorite hit - which Mayak used as a liquid waste dumping facility for decades. Some 120 million curies of radioactivity are concentrated there.

The lake is now desiccated and summer winds carry radioactively contaminated dust particles into the air. An asteroid hit in the lake bed, said Igor Kudrik, an expert on Russia’s nuclear industry with Bellona, could severely exacerbate the amount of radionuclides blown into the atmosphere.

Likewise, the Techa River Cascade, into which Mayak has dumped so much liquid radioactive contamination over six decades that the river itself is considered nuclear waste, could also spread radioactive contamination were it hit by an asteroid.

Local NGOsare lobbying for the entire river to be covered by a cement sarcophagus, a la Chernobyl’s exploded reactor No 4.

Other radioactive waste and spent nuclear storage sites that are speckled throughout the region could also have posed a danger.

We’re quite familiar with the lore of various secret United States nuclear facilities; their storied history and operations being shrouded in secrecy has fascinated us for decades. What we seldom hear about are the secret nuclear laboratories and test facilities of our greatest Cold War opponent – the former U.S.S.R. One particular installation – Chelyabinsk-40 – was the first Soviet plutonium production complex and the site of three separate massive nuclear incidents. Until recently this area was not on maps and the Russian government denied its existence.

Quoting: Waterbug

awesome find- awesome read- and it all google earths..... WOW!.. kept me interested for well over an hour

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

The most infamous nuclear facility in the area, located in the hard-hit Chelyabinsk Region, is the Mayak nuclear-fuel processing plant which houses some 560 tons of spent uranium fuel, 30 tons of reactor grade plutonium and 500,000 tons of solid radioactive waste. It also stores unknown quantities of weapons grade uranium and plutonium.

Mayak was the site of a major accident in 1957 caused some of the worst nuclear contamination in the Soviet Union’s history, second perhaps only to the infamous Chernobyl reactor accident in the sheer volume of the radioactive emissions it released. The accident occurred when a waste storage tank exploded and showered radionuclides throughout the Southern Urals, leaving areas that are still heavily contaminated with radiation even today.

Other sensitive nuclear sites in the area include Lake Karachai - only some 60 kilometers from where the meteorite hit - which Mayak used as a liquid waste dumping facility for decades. Some 120 million curies of radioactivity are concentrated there.

The lake is now desiccated and summer winds carry radioactively contaminated dust particles into the air. An asteroid hit in the lake bed, said Igor Kudrik, an expert on Russia’s nuclear industry with Bellona, could severely exacerbate the amount of radionuclides blown into the atmosphere.

Likewise, the Techa River Cascade, into which Mayak has dumped so much liquid radioactive contamination over six decades that the river itself is considered nuclear waste, could also spread radioactive contamination were it hit by an asteroid.

Local NGOsare lobbying for the entire river to be covered by a cement sarcophagus, a la Chernobyl’s exploded reactor No 4.

Other radioactive waste and spent nuclear storage sites that are speckled throughout the region could also have posed a danger.

We’re quite familiar with the lore of various secret United States nuclear facilities; their storied history and operations being shrouded in secrecy has fascinated us for decades. What we seldom hear about are the secret nuclear laboratories and test facilities of our greatest Cold War opponent – the former U.S.S.R. One particular installation – Chelyabinsk-40 – was the first Soviet plutonium production complex and the site of three separate massive nuclear incidents. Until recently this area was not on maps and the Russian government denied its existence.

Quoting: Waterbug

awesome find- awesome read- and it all google earths..... WOW!.. kept me interested for well over an hour

Quoting: Citizenperth

You should do a thread..This is something never seen before.Secret nuclear labs and facilities.

The most infamous nuclear facility in the area, located in the hard-hit Chelyabinsk Region, is the Mayak nuclear-fuel processing plant which houses some 560 tons of spent uranium fuel, 30 tons of reactor grade plutonium and 500,000 tons of solid radioactive waste. It also stores unknown quantities of weapons grade uranium and plutonium.

Mayak was the site of a major accident in 1957 caused some of the worst nuclear contamination in the Soviet Union’s history, second perhaps only to the infamous Chernobyl reactor accident in the sheer volume of the radioactive emissions it released. The accident occurred when a waste storage tank exploded and showered radionuclides throughout the Southern Urals, leaving areas that are still heavily contaminated with radiation even today.

Other sensitive nuclear sites in the area include Lake Karachai - only some 60 kilometers from where the meteorite hit - which Mayak used as a liquid waste dumping facility for decades. Some 120 million curies of radioactivity are concentrated there.

The lake is now desiccated and summer winds carry radioactively contaminated dust particles into the air. An asteroid hit in the lake bed, said Igor Kudrik, an expert on Russia’s nuclear industry with Bellona, could severely exacerbate the amount of radionuclides blown into the atmosphere.

Likewise, the Techa River Cascade, into which Mayak has dumped so much liquid radioactive contamination over six decades that the river itself is considered nuclear waste, could also spread radioactive contamination were it hit by an asteroid.

Local NGOsare lobbying for the entire river to be covered by a cement sarcophagus, a la Chernobyl’s exploded reactor No 4.

Other radioactive waste and spent nuclear storage sites that are speckled throughout the region could also have posed a danger.

We’re quite familiar with the lore of various secret United States nuclear facilities; their storied history and operations being shrouded in secrecy has fascinated us for decades. What we seldom hear about are the secret nuclear laboratories and test facilities of our greatest Cold War opponent – the former U.S.S.R. One particular installation – Chelyabinsk-40 – was the first Soviet plutonium production complex and the site of three separate massive nuclear incidents. Until recently this area was not on maps and the Russian government denied its existence.

Quoting: Waterbug

awesome find- awesome read- and it all google earths..... WOW!.. kept me interested for well over an hour

Quoting: Citizenperth

You should do a thread..This is something never seen before.Secret nuclear labs and facilities.

Quoting: Waterbug

maybe if time allows :)...... quite the under ground bunker town yeah?

55°51'08.12" N 61°41'30.02" E

factories with big walls... undercover walkways5 year prisoner/worker life span....

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

A tank that holds radioactive liquid at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site, is leaking, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday. The news raises concerns about the site’s other storage tanks, which hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons. The federal Department of Energy said that liquid levels were falling in one of 177 underground tanks, but that monitoring wells near the tank had not detected higher radiation levels. Mr. Inslee said the leak could be in between 150 and 300 gallons a year. A plant being built to treat the waste is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

<snip>Cesium or caesium are radioactive particles. Radiation. I am no rocket scientist and do not understand enough(yet), the differences between Cs137, Cs134 or Cs133 to explain it here. Unfortunately MY cesium is the result of radiation fallout not too many xrays. The test results:

“ Contamination from Cs137 as a result from radioactive fallout could be a problem. It is higher than expected, reflecting exposure to Cesium but symptoms may not be evident.”

That has an ominous tone, doesn’t it? Unfortunately there are some evident symptoms, they just weren’t making sense before now.

I am posting this because I have readers who live here, in the Bay Area. I read several local “chronic illness” groups daily where people have gotten increasingly ill in the past year and don’t understand why. Doctors are scratching their heads, never thinking that maybe it’s radiation, tho plenty of the patients have been wondering for almost two years.

I am convinced we are NOT getting the information we need about what IS in our air and water. It is impossible to overlook the obvious. The ongoing Fukushima Power Plant Disaster continues to spew vast amounts of radioactivity into the air and sea. Next month it will be 2 years since Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami killed hundreds of thousands. Yet we still do not have the information we need. And people ARE dying…<end snip>

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

The US government has found that the level of radioactive waste liquid in an underground tank at a decommissioned nuclear site is decreasing.

The US Energy Department announced on Friday that liquid levels are dropping in one of 177 underground tanks storing nuclear waste at the Hanford site in the western state of Washington.

A department official said only that the rate of decrease could be in the range of 570 liters to 1,140 liters per year. But he did not disclose how much liquid nuclear waste was gone as a whole nor the cause of the loss. [link to www3.nhk.or.jp] .

On Friday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee confirmed that radioactive liquids are leaking from tanks at the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States at Hanford, further heightening concerns experts have shared about the integrity of other storage facilities which have not been investigated and may also be leaking.

The U.S. Department of Energy confirmed the leak was decreasing levels in at least 1 of 177 underground tanks and said the rate of leakage was between 150 to 300 gallons per year and is will begin work required to start assessing the other tanks.

The single-walled tanks are capable of storing some 447,000 gallons of highly radioactive nuclear waste. They were constructed during the 1940s and are previously known to have leaked over one million gallons of waste threatening the Columbia River. [link to enformable.com] .